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‘Funiculì, Funiculà’ was composed by Luigi Denza in 1880, to lyrics in Neapolitan dialect by Peppino Turco. The merry Neapolitan tune sings of a young man, who compares his sweetheart to a volcano and invites her to join him on a romantic walk up to the summit. It was written to mark the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius – and within the year, the song had done the 19th-century equivalent of shooting to the top of the charts. By 1881, the sheet music had sold a million copies.
